Dear Amanda, How can someone overcome the sadness of a friendship lost? There is a lot of advice for “relationship” breakups, but I recently lost a friend who I loved who just ended up hurting me badly.
Friendship breakup songs: Dar Williams “Beautiful Enemy” might’ve been about a lovers’ breakup but it fit a severing of friendship for me so well that I must share it.
One thing that I would do that might shift some energy is to have an out loud pretend conversation with the friend. Say everything you'd want to say to them in that conversation, imagine them answering back, in however way you want. Also if you Google ho'oponopono which is a Hawaiian forgiveness practice - I've had amazing results. As for break up songs of any kind - Billy Joel, And So It Goes is mine.
That song always makes me cry so much but it is so perfect for it ♥ I really like the idea of the out loud conversation, thank you so much for sharing this!
Oh my! That’s a wonderful idea Deb, thanks so much.
This is all a bit too raw for me right now. I’m starting to dig deep with my therapist about some of the old hard orphaned roots, that are buried deep in my psyche, and are no doubt contributing to my chronic illnesses.
Probably wasn't what you had in mind when it was written but I've been listening to Necessary Evil to drag me through grieving a years-long friendship that I dearly miss. And then there's Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd and Misguided Ghosts by Paramore and Operator by Jim Croce... I think I need to put the friendship grieving songs in one playlist instead of making another playlist for each friend I lose because the playlists are getting hard to sort through lately.
I am working through a friendship break-up too. A ride-or-die friend who turned out not to be able to handle even mild distress from me over my divorce. Yay.
“I know the End” by Phoebe Bridgers.
I may have played “I’m looking through you” by the Beatles on repeat in college over a friend break up.
Christina, meee toooo. This just happened to me and I can’t accept it. I imagine her saying, “I just had to protect my energy,” or some such new age anti-loyal bullshit. I’m still in disbelief I got dumped for going thru a rough patch. Not by THIS friend.
I had a dear friend who, in the depths of my depression, I hurt deeply. It's been something like 12 years now, and there's almost never a day I don't regret hurting her. That I don't regret freezing her out. It's taken me a great deal of time to accept that she doesn't want to reconcile, to fully take on the burden of the fault in destroying what was, probably, the best friendship I've ever had since.
If I'm being honest, though, an equally difficult part of that relationship is that now, I don't form close relationships anymore. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to bring them close to have them hurt me. I've spent a lot of those last 12 years building up walls around that little friend cemetery. I'm split 50/50 on whether or not that's a good thing. But most days, I ache for relationships, for closeness, for a group chat going wild at 2 AM, for people to see and places to go.
But then I think about that friend--and the other friends I hurt with my depression, and just being the person I am/was. It's not worth the possibility of hurting them. Or is it? I don't even know anymore.
For friend breakup songs, I have to recommend SKYPE TOMORROW from the *wonderful*, stunning, criminally underrated musical WE ARE THE TIGERS by Preston Max Allen.
I feel this deeply. I have Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar type. I also have hurt friends in my depression and in my mania. I have this one friend who I hung out with every day. Before I was medicated I was a deeply toxic person. I was delusional half the time. Long story short we both hurt each other. After about ten years we finally forgave each other and now we are close friends again.
I know it’s hard to make friends when you know that one day you could hurt them and lose them. But we need social interactions. You deserve friendship as much as anyone else. Good friends understand that those of us with mental illnesses aren’t always going to be perfect friends. Luckily for me I’ve learned that when I’m manic or depressed I share how I’m feeling so that they understand if I lash out or if I push them away there is a reason.
You shouldn’t go through your depression alone. I know that’s easy to say. I know when I get depressed I just want to lay in bed and be alone. Find someone who understands what you’re going through. There are many support groups for mental illness, maybe that could help. I know there are now even some that are through Zoom.
I’ve found that being open and honest about my illness when I first meet people usually weeds out the shitty people who are afraid of having me “kill their vibe”.
You deserve friendship and one mistake you made doesn’t define who you are as a person.
I listened to some of your poetry and you have a beautiful soul. Share it.
…expressing our feelings and being open about what we’re coping with or struggling with…yep. That right there is golden advice.
I’m English. The closest and deepest friendships I have are with folks who aren’t. The two people I’m thinking about are both from the US. I’ve been able to be truly honest and open with them in a way that no other friends seem able to cope with. I know a lot of it is dependent on personality and circumstances (I have an incurable illness in common with one, and the other introduced me to the concept of codependency, at a time when I was going through a major difficult life change) but I also think it’s rooted in the culture we grew up in.
I was a primary school teacher before I got too sick to work and I spent some time living and teaching in the US. The fact that every school in the school district I worked in had a guidance counsellor was revelatory to me. And covid times have highlighted how deeply my country neglects mental health.
I'm so sorry. I've lost deep friendships in the midst of depression and trauma too, and I feel your pain so acutely. My honest feeling in response to your question, regardless how much I personally try to shut people out to protect them from me, is; give them the choice. Be honest about how you can be, tell your friends that you love them, but also that you are capable of hurting them.
Some people will tell you "you could never hurt me" and while that is reassuring, we need to remember that when someone cares deeply, they can also be hurt deeply. Most of us would never intentionally hurt anyone, but the potential is there.
I don't know much about healing the hurts, or how to reconcile, or accept and move on from loss. But I do think that giving new friends a chance, a choice, to set their own boundaries on what they are willing to do for the sake of a friendship with you, is only fair. Otherwise, we take the choice away from them by shutting them out prematurely, amd we lose all the potential joys of a relationship with them, for the sake of protecting against potential pain.
I'm not sure I articulated this well, so if nothing else, please don't blame yourself. Your mental illness isn't your fault. Take good care of yourself.
I will have to finish this in the morning, but it has already made me cry so much. I lost a friend years and years ago. And I never really recovered from it. I realized that I was never good at making friends. People always just roped me in, somehow. But that was back in high school. I’m in my mid 40’s now, so nobody really does that anymore. But I’m no better at making friends now, then I was over 20 years ago. And I feel like it also makes my intimate relationships more difficult, because I’m more alone and probably more needy. So it has just left me feeling so much more alone and vulnerable. So yes, friend breakups are a really big deal, sometimes life changing for some people.
I feel you on this! It took a few decades for me to realize that I suck at "making friends." I'm a good person, and if folks are forced to spend time with me for a while, then friendships happen, but my skill at charming new people into friendship is nil.
My best advice is to pursue that which animates you. If you are upset about the oncoming loss of reproductive rights, get involved in the many protests. If you are excited about helping abandoned pets, volunteer at a shelter. If you love the idea of making bowls out of clay, sign up for a class.
Currently I'm activated by permaculture and I've made a few friends that way, but none in my town. I'm working hard to reveal the burgeoning scandal of pediatric medical gener transition, and that has led to more friendships, including in "real life," by which I mean people I can see a movie with.
This isn't a specific "friendship breakup song" recommendation, but me and a close friend co-run a project aimed at people on the aromantic spectrum (people who don't experience romantic attraction/experience low or varying levels of romantic attraction). Every week, people can submit songs they associate with aromantic experiences - including songs about friendships and friendship breakups. My friend then compiles all those song recommendations into playlists that are available on Spotify. You can check them out here: https://open.spotify.com/user/iai348au60imxiisoo3h4r46k?si=06cd7612153449f1
I was just thinking about this the other day. I had a group of friends that I hung out with constantly for many many years. They got into drugs and would treat me poorly because I didn’t do them with them. They were very into surrounding themselves with attractive people. I was once what some would consider attractive. At least on the outside. I was just as toxic as them until I became medicated for my mental illnesses and went through intensive therapy.
That medicine I talked about made me gain weight. And I was very insecure about it. Those friends who I thought were my closest and dearest friends started treating me like crap. And that was around the time they started doing drugs and I didn’t participate so I always felt like an outsider when they would go to the bathroom and do their thing.
I eventually had to cut them out of my life. I felt like I was losing a big chunk of my friend circle and a piece of my life. But I soon realized a part of me that felt insecure and out of place finally felt free and happy. They had been dragging me down for so long that I felt a huge part of anxiety lifted off my shoulders.
I try to look back on the fun times and not the bad times. But sometimes it is good to reflect on the bad times so that I remember why I had to stop being friends with them. I miss them dearly and all the good memories we shared and I will always cherish the memories of them before they changed.
thank you for this story. we didn’t even get into the bit about whether or not the friend was a good friend to keep around. there’s a lot to say about that. i love you the way you are. xxx
My two worst breakups are friend break ups. Even my first love I thought I was going to marry a few years ago doesn’t come close to the girl who printed out adoption papers for my Birthday one year so she could (unofficially) be my older sister.
Anyway “Loser Wins” by Atmosphere is a great song for when you’re feeling angry about this shit.
Feb 18, 2022·edited Feb 18, 2022Liked by Amanda Palmer
Friendship breakups cut so much deeper than romantic ones don't they? We tend to open up parts of ourselves we don't with anyone else, we are more vulnerable, we can cut each other deeper... but... we also tend to be gentler, more flexible, more forgiving. (Perhaps there is a lesson in there too) So when those relationships finally do break (and in my experience that takes ALOT) boy it fucking cuts deep, especially when you know things "could" have different if not for that pesky demon that is addiction.(ahh the grief of what could have been!)
Sometimes friends come back to us and sometimes they never do, sometimes the hurt is too deep. Your hurt and anger is valid but I think the only way to move forward is to keep the flame burning for the part of the person you loved.. keep them in your prayers/chants/wishes/whatever.. let them go with with love.
Years ago now I lost a friend. She was one of my nearest and dearest, but she tended to disappear into drama and flakiness every time there was a new man in her life. It was exasperating, to say the least. But then she found a man that she was even more spun out on than usual, and she used it as an excuse to leave me and my whole family hanging one night, and when she finally showed up at the door with him in tow uninvited, I just snapped and yelled at her. And when I snapped he got in my face, in my home which he had entered uninvited, trying to defend her, and it was...ugly.
I ended up writing about it, without names, but she felt outed and betrayed and I felt righteously protective of my right to speak my truth. When you feel righteous about anything, that's probably a red flag that YOU have some work to do. But I didn't get that then and for my own sanity I released her to do whatever she was going to do with this man. Which ended up involving getting pregnant, marrying, and then surviving an ugly, somewhat public divorce. And I'll admit (this was years later) that I heard about it and felt a small, ugly tug of "I told you so". It was that tug that kept me from reaching out an olive branch, because I knew that I couldn't do it with a clean heart. I was still harboring hurt and resentment, and she didn't need that on top of everything else she was dealing with.
You are right, Amanda, that there is much to be said for the open-hearted offering of an olive branch, but sometimes we just can't. Sometimes we can only send love and well-wishes in our hearts and finally let them go with some grace, instead of hurt and anger. But I think it counts.
also, sometimes it takes five, ten, or twenty years. i had a friend cancel me out at 23 and she didn’t come back around with the olive branch until i was in my mid-thirties. it happens that way, sometimes. x
Friendship breakup songs: Dar Williams “Beautiful Enemy” might’ve been about a lovers’ breakup but it fit a severing of friendship for me so well that I must share it.
i’m gonna start this playlist. ♥️
Thanks for the thread- if i might add "i knew you once" by Dodie
One thing that I would do that might shift some energy is to have an out loud pretend conversation with the friend. Say everything you'd want to say to them in that conversation, imagine them answering back, in however way you want. Also if you Google ho'oponopono which is a Hawaiian forgiveness practice - I've had amazing results. As for break up songs of any kind - Billy Joel, And So It Goes is mine.
That song always makes me cry so much but it is so perfect for it ♥ I really like the idea of the out loud conversation, thank you so much for sharing this!
thanks deb ♥️
Oh my! That’s a wonderful idea Deb, thanks so much.
This is all a bit too raw for me right now. I’m starting to dig deep with my therapist about some of the old hard orphaned roots, that are buried deep in my psyche, and are no doubt contributing to my chronic illnesses.
Probably wasn't what you had in mind when it was written but I've been listening to Necessary Evil to drag me through grieving a years-long friendship that I dearly miss. And then there's Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd and Misguided Ghosts by Paramore and Operator by Jim Croce... I think I need to put the friendship grieving songs in one playlist instead of making another playlist for each friend I lose because the playlists are getting hard to sort through lately.
And how did I forget to mention Landslide by Fleetwood Mac? 😅
Zoe Boekbinder - What Have I Done
GOOD ONE dolly
Great question, helpful reply.
This has been the narrative of my 20s.
Please, anyone who is reading this, seek out James Blake’s brilliant new album titled (none other than!) “Friends That Break Your Heart”.
All tracks are brilliant. All lyrics are therapy. If you need to hear it, you can pretty much guarantee that James Blake will say it to you.
An excerpt from the titular track:
“All of that pain
& nothing gained in the end
In the end, it was friends
It was friends that broke my heart”
(Amanda, Jameela Jamil produced on the album!)
Love, as always xxx
Micropsia
oh wow - what an incredible lyric. going to listen ….
I am working through a friendship break-up too. A ride-or-die friend who turned out not to be able to handle even mild distress from me over my divorce. Yay.
“I know the End” by Phoebe Bridgers.
I may have played “I’m looking through you” by the Beatles on repeat in college over a friend break up.
let’s not forget “how do you sleep” - the ultimate fuck you friend break-up tune
Christina, meee toooo. This just happened to me and I can’t accept it. I imagine her saying, “I just had to protect my energy,” or some such new age anti-loyal bullshit. I’m still in disbelief I got dumped for going thru a rough patch. Not by THIS friend.
(Oh and none of this was above board. It was a slow distancing. With a few “sending love & light” s here and there.)
It was a 12 year friendship that I really thought was lifelong. Honestly I’m reeling more from the sudden end of that than the divorce. :-/
For the playlist: My Beautiful Friend by The Charlatans; The Way It Goes by Gillian Welch; The Way It Will Be by Gillian Welch.
♥️🙏🏼♥️
I had a dear friend who, in the depths of my depression, I hurt deeply. It's been something like 12 years now, and there's almost never a day I don't regret hurting her. That I don't regret freezing her out. It's taken me a great deal of time to accept that she doesn't want to reconcile, to fully take on the burden of the fault in destroying what was, probably, the best friendship I've ever had since.
If I'm being honest, though, an equally difficult part of that relationship is that now, I don't form close relationships anymore. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to bring them close to have them hurt me. I've spent a lot of those last 12 years building up walls around that little friend cemetery. I'm split 50/50 on whether or not that's a good thing. But most days, I ache for relationships, for closeness, for a group chat going wild at 2 AM, for people to see and places to go.
But then I think about that friend--and the other friends I hurt with my depression, and just being the person I am/was. It's not worth the possibility of hurting them. Or is it? I don't even know anymore.
For friend breakup songs, I have to recommend SKYPE TOMORROW from the *wonderful*, stunning, criminally underrated musical WE ARE THE TIGERS by Preston Max Allen.
I feel this deeply. I have Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar type. I also have hurt friends in my depression and in my mania. I have this one friend who I hung out with every day. Before I was medicated I was a deeply toxic person. I was delusional half the time. Long story short we both hurt each other. After about ten years we finally forgave each other and now we are close friends again.
I know it’s hard to make friends when you know that one day you could hurt them and lose them. But we need social interactions. You deserve friendship as much as anyone else. Good friends understand that those of us with mental illnesses aren’t always going to be perfect friends. Luckily for me I’ve learned that when I’m manic or depressed I share how I’m feeling so that they understand if I lash out or if I push them away there is a reason.
You shouldn’t go through your depression alone. I know that’s easy to say. I know when I get depressed I just want to lay in bed and be alone. Find someone who understands what you’re going through. There are many support groups for mental illness, maybe that could help. I know there are now even some that are through Zoom.
I’ve found that being open and honest about my illness when I first meet people usually weeds out the shitty people who are afraid of having me “kill their vibe”.
You deserve friendship and one mistake you made doesn’t define who you are as a person.
I listened to some of your poetry and you have a beautiful soul. Share it.
…expressing our feelings and being open about what we’re coping with or struggling with…yep. That right there is golden advice.
I’m English. The closest and deepest friendships I have are with folks who aren’t. The two people I’m thinking about are both from the US. I’ve been able to be truly honest and open with them in a way that no other friends seem able to cope with. I know a lot of it is dependent on personality and circumstances (I have an incurable illness in common with one, and the other introduced me to the concept of codependency, at a time when I was going through a major difficult life change) but I also think it’s rooted in the culture we grew up in.
I was a primary school teacher before I got too sick to work and I spent some time living and teaching in the US. The fact that every school in the school district I worked in had a guidance counsellor was revelatory to me. And covid times have highlighted how deeply my country neglects mental health.
I’ve heard so many bad things about the UK mental health system I hope you can find the help you need.
the wall around the cemetery. it keeps love out and keeps you in. what an image. i love you. i understand. ♥️
I'm so sorry. I've lost deep friendships in the midst of depression and trauma too, and I feel your pain so acutely. My honest feeling in response to your question, regardless how much I personally try to shut people out to protect them from me, is; give them the choice. Be honest about how you can be, tell your friends that you love them, but also that you are capable of hurting them.
Some people will tell you "you could never hurt me" and while that is reassuring, we need to remember that when someone cares deeply, they can also be hurt deeply. Most of us would never intentionally hurt anyone, but the potential is there.
I don't know much about healing the hurts, or how to reconcile, or accept and move on from loss. But I do think that giving new friends a chance, a choice, to set their own boundaries on what they are willing to do for the sake of a friendship with you, is only fair. Otherwise, we take the choice away from them by shutting them out prematurely, amd we lose all the potential joys of a relationship with them, for the sake of protecting against potential pain.
I'm not sure I articulated this well, so if nothing else, please don't blame yourself. Your mental illness isn't your fault. Take good care of yourself.
You’ve articulated yourself perfectly. Thank you
This one hit close to home, great read. Eager for the sister column. Flesh Without Blood by Grimes is a very good friend breakup song.
GRIMES ♥️♥️♥️
I will have to finish this in the morning, but it has already made me cry so much. I lost a friend years and years ago. And I never really recovered from it. I realized that I was never good at making friends. People always just roped me in, somehow. But that was back in high school. I’m in my mid 40’s now, so nobody really does that anymore. But I’m no better at making friends now, then I was over 20 years ago. And I feel like it also makes my intimate relationships more difficult, because I’m more alone and probably more needy. So it has just left me feeling so much more alone and vulnerable. So yes, friend breakups are a really big deal, sometimes life changing for some people.
I feel you on this! It took a few decades for me to realize that I suck at "making friends." I'm a good person, and if folks are forced to spend time with me for a while, then friendships happen, but my skill at charming new people into friendship is nil.
My best advice is to pursue that which animates you. If you are upset about the oncoming loss of reproductive rights, get involved in the many protests. If you are excited about helping abandoned pets, volunteer at a shelter. If you love the idea of making bowls out of clay, sign up for a class.
Currently I'm activated by permaculture and I've made a few friends that way, but none in my town. I'm working hard to reveal the burgeoning scandal of pediatric medical gener transition, and that has led to more friendships, including in "real life," by which I mean people I can see a movie with.
This isn't a specific "friendship breakup song" recommendation, but me and a close friend co-run a project aimed at people on the aromantic spectrum (people who don't experience romantic attraction/experience low or varying levels of romantic attraction). Every week, people can submit songs they associate with aromantic experiences - including songs about friendships and friendship breakups. My friend then compiles all those song recommendations into playlists that are available on Spotify. You can check them out here: https://open.spotify.com/user/iai348au60imxiisoo3h4r46k?si=06cd7612153449f1
I was just thinking about this the other day. I had a group of friends that I hung out with constantly for many many years. They got into drugs and would treat me poorly because I didn’t do them with them. They were very into surrounding themselves with attractive people. I was once what some would consider attractive. At least on the outside. I was just as toxic as them until I became medicated for my mental illnesses and went through intensive therapy.
That medicine I talked about made me gain weight. And I was very insecure about it. Those friends who I thought were my closest and dearest friends started treating me like crap. And that was around the time they started doing drugs and I didn’t participate so I always felt like an outsider when they would go to the bathroom and do their thing.
I eventually had to cut them out of my life. I felt like I was losing a big chunk of my friend circle and a piece of my life. But I soon realized a part of me that felt insecure and out of place finally felt free and happy. They had been dragging me down for so long that I felt a huge part of anxiety lifted off my shoulders.
I try to look back on the fun times and not the bad times. But sometimes it is good to reflect on the bad times so that I remember why I had to stop being friends with them. I miss them dearly and all the good memories we shared and I will always cherish the memories of them before they changed.
thank you for this story. we didn’t even get into the bit about whether or not the friend was a good friend to keep around. there’s a lot to say about that. i love you the way you are. xxx
My two worst breakups are friend break ups. Even my first love I thought I was going to marry a few years ago doesn’t come close to the girl who printed out adoption papers for my Birthday one year so she could (unofficially) be my older sister.
Anyway “Loser Wins” by Atmosphere is a great song for when you’re feeling angry about this shit.
Friendship breakups cut so much deeper than romantic ones don't they? We tend to open up parts of ourselves we don't with anyone else, we are more vulnerable, we can cut each other deeper... but... we also tend to be gentler, more flexible, more forgiving. (Perhaps there is a lesson in there too) So when those relationships finally do break (and in my experience that takes ALOT) boy it fucking cuts deep, especially when you know things "could" have different if not for that pesky demon that is addiction.(ahh the grief of what could have been!)
Sometimes friends come back to us and sometimes they never do, sometimes the hurt is too deep. Your hurt and anger is valid but I think the only way to move forward is to keep the flame burning for the part of the person you loved.. keep them in your prayers/chants/wishes/whatever.. let them go with with love.
OMG! " Bells for Her" by Tori Amos is my goto at the friendship graveyard. You'd nail.that song..the piano is haunting and killer.
Years ago now I lost a friend. She was one of my nearest and dearest, but she tended to disappear into drama and flakiness every time there was a new man in her life. It was exasperating, to say the least. But then she found a man that she was even more spun out on than usual, and she used it as an excuse to leave me and my whole family hanging one night, and when she finally showed up at the door with him in tow uninvited, I just snapped and yelled at her. And when I snapped he got in my face, in my home which he had entered uninvited, trying to defend her, and it was...ugly.
I ended up writing about it, without names, but she felt outed and betrayed and I felt righteously protective of my right to speak my truth. When you feel righteous about anything, that's probably a red flag that YOU have some work to do. But I didn't get that then and for my own sanity I released her to do whatever she was going to do with this man. Which ended up involving getting pregnant, marrying, and then surviving an ugly, somewhat public divorce. And I'll admit (this was years later) that I heard about it and felt a small, ugly tug of "I told you so". It was that tug that kept me from reaching out an olive branch, because I knew that I couldn't do it with a clean heart. I was still harboring hurt and resentment, and she didn't need that on top of everything else she was dealing with.
You are right, Amanda, that there is much to be said for the open-hearted offering of an olive branch, but sometimes we just can't. Sometimes we can only send love and well-wishes in our hearts and finally let them go with some grace, instead of hurt and anger. But I think it counts.
also, sometimes it takes five, ten, or twenty years. i had a friend cancel me out at 23 and she didn’t come back around with the olive branch until i was in my mid-thirties. it happens that way, sometimes. x
"When you feel righteous about anything, that's probably a red flag that YOU have some work to do" - That's quote for me to reread again and again.
It's been a hard, but necessary, lesson for me.